Word Origin & History

1550s, probably a frequentative of dab. Original meaning was "wet by splashing;" modern figurative sense of "do superficially" first recorded 1620s. Related: Dabbled; dabbling. An Ellen Dablewife is in the Lancashire Inquests from 1336.

Example Sentences for dabbling

She was not a little suspected of dabbling in other forbidden things.

And instead of dabbling in religion for myself I put myself in its hands.

That's rather hard on the rest of us who are dabbling in politics.

Raymond must give up his dabbling, and set to work like a man.

As a matter of fact, it was no foot at all he was dabbling, but only a maimed stump.

Dabbling in sorcery is in some degree the province of the female Gypsy.

One story had it that "dabbling in magic" had lost him his position in the Church.

I knew just how they did feel inside while they were dabbling their toes in the water.

While I was dabbling my toes, my legs did have longings to go in wading, but I went not in.